


To Enjoy Bodily Warmth

by BuickTom



Series: The Things We Knew and Held Dear [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Character Development, Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, Happy Ending, Help, Homophobia, How Do I Tag, I Tried, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Marriage, Not Beta Read, Snapshots, Sort Of, Swearing, gross overuse of the word 'fuck', like lots of f-bombs, my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24545632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuickTom/pseuds/BuickTom
Summary: It was the makings of an unbearably happy death. It was almost too much; when they parted Mickey could barely catch his breath before they were crashing back together. They were hungry creatures. Mickey was hungrier.To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold.Mickey thought both of them had probably be frozen their entire fucking lives.--------------------------------------Or, here's one thing Mickey Milkovich knew for certain: Ian Gallagher saved his life.Or, an attempt to capture just why Mickey Milkovich is so fucking dedicated to Ian Gallagher.I wrote this as I waited for inspiration to strike on another fic. I want to write a companion piece from Ian's perspective, but we'll see.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: The Things We Knew and Held Dear [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819390
Comments: 22
Kudos: 121





	To Enjoy Bodily Warmth

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

Mickey thought about this as he flicked ash from the tip of his cigarette and shivered in the miserable January cold.

Most people thought Mickey Milkovich didn’t know how to read. They’d be wrong. He wasn’t that fucking stupid. Maybe he’d never read anything longer than Red Fish, Blue Fish, but that was probably still more than Iggy or Colin. Maybe even more than Dad.

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

Mickey hadn’t been to school since that one week back in November when Dad made him go because CPS came around again and Dad needed Mickey to run drugs for him so he couldn’t get sent to a group home. Mandy still went to school almost every day though, like a fucking nerd, or maybe just because she didn’t want to be around Dad. Fuck if Mickey knew what went on inside her head. He didn’t blame her.

About a month ago, she came home with a book she was supposed to read for class, or something. It was a real fucking big book too. Mickey thought you could probably knock a motherfucker out with it, maybe even permanently if you were good enough. The book had some chicken shit name that Mickey couldn’t remember because Mickey and his brothers had immediately started calling it “Moldy Dick”. Maybe that was the actual title. If it was, then the author did a shitty job of naming it. Mickey couldn’t fucking fathom why someone would take the time to write a whole book just to name it “Moldy Dick” though. On second thought, it probably wasn’t actually called Moldy Dick. Who knew, writers were weird ass motherfuckers.

Either way Moldy Dick hadn’t really done anything in the Milkovich house except that Mickey saw Jaime ripping some pages out once to roll a few blunts and Dad threw it at Colin’s head when he lost a guy who owed money for crystal.

Mickey personally had only ever picked it up once when he was digging for a pistol in the couch cushions. He was just gonna toss it aside, but instead - out of curiosity - he flipped to a random page and read the line:

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

Before Iggy came crashing into the living room asking him if he was coming or needed to finish doing his make-up and taking it up the ass first. The book was speedily flung to the floor in favor of Micky jamming his hand between the couch cushions to retrieve his gun. Mandy’s class finished reading it two days later and Mickey never saw Moldy Dick again.

It had bothered him since he’d read it. Usually things like that didn’t stick with him. He read something once and it was like his brain was slippery as a wet dick because it never stayed in there. Mandy was good at that shit, remembering stuff. Sometimes it pissed him off. This, though, this stuck with him because he couldn’t figure out what it meant. That pissed him off too.

Because it probably meant fucking nothing and he wasn’t some pansy-ass teacher who thought because someone wrote that the house was fucking brick that it meant Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was a Native American curse or some shit like that. But it still bothered him.

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold_

“Mickey!” Iggy and Colin came tearing down the street, gunshots blasting in their wake. Mickey wasn’t worried, it was most likely their own bullets. He flicked the miniscule butt of his cigarette into the slush on the road, it had burned his fingertips, and clambered into the front of their get-away van. As soon as his brothers had crashed into the back seat, he floored it. They fish-tailed around the corner. It hadn’t been cold enough for snow the past few days, but it was still rainy, so the roads were shit. At least they didn’t spin-out.

Ian Gallagher was one bizarre motherfucker. Yeah, sure, he kind of looked alien with the pasty white skin and red hair, but that’s not what bothered Mickey about Ian. Well, not the main thing anyway. A lot of things about Ian bothered Mickey. The worst thing was that most of the time he didn’t _actually know_ what bothered him about the fucking ginger.

“Mickey, your smoke.” Ian said. They were both slouched against the chain-link fence in the dugout. It was dark, but Mickey could see Ian’s shirtless form just fine. Mickey couldn’t look at him straight. Which pissed him off. Then Ian was in his space. Just a little too close and plucking the cigarette from Mickey’s fingers, it had burned down to a stub no longer than Mickey’s gnarly pinky nail. The cigarette burned Ian as he took it and he dropped it to the ground with an angry hiss, quickly stamping it out. It took Mickey a minute to stop feeling electrocuted by how Ian’s fingertips had brushed against his own, his skin crawling and warm all at the same time. Then he noticed the angry sting in his fingers. He had let the cigarette burn him too.

“Shit.” Mickey stuck them in his mouth automatically then he realized Ian was still watching and took them out. He wasn’t a pussy.

“What the hell Mickey?” Ian’s tone was half-teasing for some reason. It pissed Mickey off when Ian said his name. Some smaller part of him said that it wasn’t Ian saying his name so much as how Ian saying his name made him feel. Like he mattered or some shit. Mickey knew better than that. His whole life had been a testament of biblical fucking proportions to how much of an inconsequential shit stain Mickey Milkovich was.

When Mickey just shrugged brusquely Ian took it as an opportunity to mention,

“I talked to Linda.”

“No shit? I’m glad you two are getting your girl talk in.” Mickey was in a sour mood now.

“Fuck off, I mean about giving you a job.”

“Yeah, what’d she say?” Mickey’s throat felt tight all of a sudden. He didn’t know why he cared, why it made him nervous. The only thing that ever made Mickey nervous was his Dad when Mickey knew he’d messed up. No, fuck that. Probably just his Dad, all the time. But somehow, he did care and when he chanced a glance at Ian as he lit another cigarette, Ian kind of looked like he cared a whole lot too. That pissed Mickey off even as it twisted something pleasantly in his chest. He looked away before it could feel any better.

“Said she’d think about it, long as she doesn’t catch you stealing any shit again.” Linda was a smart woman; she knew to keep her enemies close. And she knew that Mickey Milkovich was her enemy. But hell, Mickey Milkovich was everyone’s fucking enemy. If you’d fight anything with a social security number, and probably some things without, that was just how it went.

“No shit?” Mickey repeated and tried to look casual about it. Tried to quell the excitement threatening to burst in his chest. He’d probably work there for a month, get taken in by for the fuzz for some lightweight misdemeanor and that’d be the end of that. The only alternative was that Terry caught on to him and Ian and they both ended up dead in a ditch somewhere off I-90 with their dicks cut off and probably _faggot_ carved into their chests for good measures. Both were shitty fucking options.

They were both silent for a moment. And the quiet hung suspended in something that felt dangerously close to comfortable. At the other end of the moment Mickey was uneasy as he asked,

“Why do you fucking care so much about whether I got a job, huh Gallagher?” It was Ian’s turn to shrug. He hesitated before saying, too softly,

“Shit. I dunno. Guess I just think you got something goin’ for you.” Mickey pressed the pads of his burned fingertips into his sweating palm and felt the sting. It wasn’t enough though. It wasn’t enough for this to feel like a punishment. That was how Mickey justified it to himself sometimes. Like right after he went fag-bashing with Dad or when Dad, drunk or tweaking out of his fucking mind, raved about what he’d do if one of his kids was a pussy shirt-lifter.

Being with Ian like this was a punishment. Because Mickey Milkovich was a piece of shit just like Terry Milkovich. Mickey Milkovich was a piece of fucking shit and if he let Ian Gallagher hit it a few times a week then maybe he was only getting his just desserts. He wasn’t a real man, probably not even a real person. Mickey didn’t fucking know. He spit angrily at the ground, took Ian’s cigarette from the other boy’s mouth, tossed it there too, and started to undo his fly again,

“C’mon firecrotch. You had enough time to get it up again or you need some Viagra, old man?” He prodded. Ian rose to meet him. He always did.

“Yeah right, don’t complain to me when you can’t walk straight tomorrow.” Then Ian’s hands, so warm that Mickey didn’t want to think about how much they didn’t feel like a punishment, were at his hips and Mickey turned to grip the chain-link for dear life.

Mikhailo fucking Milkovich kissed Ian fucking Gallagher. Mickey had kissed Ian. And it was the best fucking feeling in the world. Then Mickey took a bullet to the ass. Now he was the butt (no pun intended) of eighty-five percent of jokes in the Milkovich household. Good thing Iggy and Jaime had a combined IQ lower than a fucking cucumber or it would’ve been one hundred percent.

Still it sucked ass (no pun intended). It’d been a week since he’d left the house and it was driving him up the fucking walls. He could only watch so much porn, take so many opioids, and weasel so much information on Ian out of Mandy’s tirades about every single thing, down to the exact time she took a shit after third period, she did that day. All he could do was lay on his stomach in bed and get up to piss or get a beer.

Fuck. He was hungry. It was likely nobody had gone for groceries since 2008 and Mickey had stopped checking the kitchen altogether. It was rare that the Milkovichs actually had anything in the fridge anyway, other than beer and a freezer burnt bag of peas for icing black eyes. They mostly stole everything else they ate. Had been doing it that way since mom died. Or maybe even before mom died, after shooting up became a more pressing concern than children. 

His phone rang.

“Shit.” Mickey grappled for it on the bed stand to check the caller ID. His pulse suffered a near fatal blow. He answered it.

“The fuck you want Gallagher?”

“Nice to hear from you too Mickey. How’s your ass doing?”

“Fucking peachy. What do you think? It hurts like hell.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that from you.” Ian joked. Mickey groaned.

“Fuck you Gallagher.”

“Hey. Your dad around?” Another shot to Mickey’s pulse.

“Nah, he’s gone till… whenever. Why?”

“Thought you’d like a visitor.” Another hit. His heart wouldn’t be able to take much more.

“Don’t you have fucking class or some geek shit or something till four?”

“I can miss.”

“Whatever. Do what you want.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

Ian hung up just in time to save Mickey’s heartbeat. He immediately got up, feeling the ache of the bullet wound in his ass, and went to the bathroom. Some people called Mickey the dirtiest kid on the Southside. Personally, Mickey didn’t care. Was probably the truth. None of the Milkovichs were particularly cinnamon apple scented motherfuckers. Milkovich cleanliness is not thy name. And for all the bitching Ian Gallagher practiced on a daily basis, he had never complained about Mickey’s appearance.

However, somewhere along the way Mickey had started to care about what Ian thought. He was loath to admit it, but fuck if it was the truth. He messed with himself in the mirror and brushed his teeth for about five minutes before he realized what he was doing and stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him for good measures. Instead he scrounged up a tit mag from the floor and flung himself onto the bed. On his stomach. Subconsciously, he worried that his bedsheets stank. He laid there frozen in a hellish cycle of stressing out about arbitrary shit and convincing himself not to give a shit about arbitrary shit. Then finally:

“Mickey?” It was Ian. He didn’t knock before entering the room but wavered awkwardly in the doorway.

“You waiting for the Queen of England to formally welcome you or something Gallagher?” At that Ian propelled into motion, dropping himself on the end of the bed. He set a McDonald’s bag down in front of Mickey.

“Thought you might be hungry.” Ian commented, rubbing at the back of his neck, all casual. Mickey propped himself up to grab at the bag.

“Good. I’m fucking starving.” Ian peered at Mickey curiously as he began devouring fries. Mickey glanced at him and their eyes met for a moment. A flame lit, or maybe it had already been there and was just flagging, in Mickey’s stomach. They were silent for a moment. “If you want a beer firecrotch, you know where it is.”

Ian made a ‘hm’-ing sort of noise and got up. When he returned Mickey had already eaten his way through the fries and moved on to conquer a Big Mac. He had to stop to remove the tomato. Mickey fucking hated tomatoes. Ian handed Mickey a beer before popping the cap off his own and settling back on the bed. Mickey may have imagined it, but Ian seemed a little closer than before.

“Don’t like tomato?” Ian asked off-handedly, took a swig of beer. Mickey nodded.

“Once when I was a kid all we had to eat for three days was fucking tomatoes. Jaime pulled them out of the neighbor’s trash. Whole tomatoes too, what kind of asshole throws away whole fucking tomatoes?” Ian nodded and grimaced,

“Fiona took some expired milk home from Patty’s once last year. It was only a few days bad; you know how you can usually still eat that shit for a while after its expired. Well, not this time. Debby and me got the worst fucking food poisoning. Puked my guts out for a week. Now I can’t even look at milk without getting nauseous.”

Mickey lobbed a crumpled-up napkin at Ian’s head,

“Thanks, man. Not like I’m eating here or something.” The effect of this statement was lessened by the fact that Mickey had already finished his food.

“Fuck, dude. When was the last time you ate?” Ian asked. Mickey avoided eye contact adamantly and shrugged. The best response he could give. They were silent for a while. It wasn’t bad. Mickey had started to notice. Quiet with Ian hardly ever felt bad. Not at all like the painful minutes before Terry came home and Mickey knew he’d screwed up. Not at all like the time Mickey had been beat so fucking bad he’d laid on the kitchen floor for an hour and a half, listening to his own pathetic breathing. Mickey thought he might even like this kind of quiet.

Then Mickey turned to look at Ian and suddenly he was crowding in. Then they were kissing. Like a week ago, in the van. Except now it was more. More intimate, more intentional, more comfortable, more everything. One of Ian’s hands landed on the back of his neck. Stayed there like a firebrand burning Mickey straight to his core while Mickey’s own hands scrambled for purchase, anywhere on Ian’s waist, his chest. His heart was pounding, the makings of an unbearably happy death. It was almost too much; when they parted Mickey could barely catch his breath before they were crashing back together. They were hungry creatures. Mickey was hungrier.

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

Mickey thought both of them had probably be frozen their entire fucking lives. One of Ian’s hands slipped lower as they kissed, moved to grab Mickey’s ass. Suddenly Mickey’s whole back burned. Not in a good way. He swore and jerked away from Ian,

“Fuck, Mick.”, _Mick_ , Ian murmured it like a prayer. Like it meant something more than _white trash, Terry’s bitch, criminal_. Like something precious “Sorry. Maybe we should just…” Ian’s hand moved up to cup his cheek. And they were kissing again. And kissed and kissed and kissed. And that was all they did. It felt fucking amazing.

Some part of him crawled with it. Some little part of him chanted _fag, fag, fag, fucking faggot_

A bigger part just felt good. Like he was finally whole. He wouldn’t admit it to even himself yet. A piece of him remained frozen solid, but all the rest had already ignited, and the ensuing wildfire was becoming harder to ignore.

“Mickey, you here?” He and Ian nearly literally leapt apart at Colin’s voice. Mickey reassuming his post with the adult mag in hand and Ian suddenly searching his pockets for his cigarettes. Mickey scooped a carton off the floor and tossed it into his lap. They shared a look. Mickey had never shared a look with anyone in his life.

Colin burst into the room, like every Milkovich had ever entered a room. He didn’t seem surprised to see Ian. The two of them had been hanging out a lot recently.

“Dad needs you ready to go when he gets home in fifteen.”

Mickey Milkovich’s life had been a testament of biblical fucking proportions to what an inconsequential shit stain he was. And for a while he’d forgotten that. And now he’d paid for it too. The throbbing in his forehead where his father had popped him with the pistol reminded him of this. The empty cavity in his chest that had been fucking emergency evacuated when he, bent over with Ian Gallagher naked and warm and real behind him, saw his father standing in the hall reminded him of this. The ever rising, discontented nausea trying to fill that space after reminded him of this.

It had been three days since Terry caught them. Three days since he was fucked by a whore while Terry and Ian watched. Three days since he’d seen Ian Gallagher. Three days since he remembered who he was. Three days since he had finally realized that he was certainly not straight, and he was almost certainly in love.

He swung wildly between listless and pissed. He didn’t know which one he preferred less. His brothers’ looks and Mandy’s general disregard were starting to make him a little homicidal. So, he went to the warehouse to shoot shit.

He shot at a creepy fucking doll he’d found in a box shoved into his closet. Probably mom’s from when she was a little girl or some shit. _Crack_. The sound of it exploded in his ears and it felt like his brain was shattering into a million pieces. It might’ve just been the brick which burst apart on the far wall when he missed.

He shot again. _Crack._ This time it hit. He felt no less shitty. And that made him feel shittier.

 _Crack._ He wanted to see Ian like he needed to fucking breathe, but the idea of talking to him - that stupid red hair, those hands, the shoulders that were only getting broader, and most of all those painful green eyes – made Mickey’s head pound. Mickey had never wanted to be the reason for Ian’s pain. Yet inevitably he had ripped both their hearts out and he would do it again.

 _Crack._ Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Ian fucking Gallagher crept in the periphery of his vision. Mickey took another shot. Missed.

Ian wheezed, some deformed cousin of a humorless laugh, “So, uh, thanks to me, you’ve been pistol whipped and shot in the ass.” _Crack._ The sound of Mickey’s next shot rang in lieu of a response. Mickey worked his jaw. How badly he wanted to say something, but he knew what Ian didn’t. Terry would never fucking leave them alone. They were lucky to be alive. How glad Mickey was that Ian was alive.

“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Ian was more hesitant now. Another crack exploded into the silence.

“Yeah, uh, can’t stop thinking about it.” A breath, “what happened…” Another.

“Would you at least look at me?” This was the punishment Mickey had been looking for. Ian yelling at him like the piece of shit he was. Something that didn’t approach comfortable or warm. Mickey had thought Ian was a soft bitch. Turns out he just hadn’t pulled the right trigger yet. Mickey knew why Ian was angry. Hell, he was fucking pissed at himself too.

“Fine.” It sounded like an ending. Mickey shot the doll once more. It finally exploded into floaty tufts of cotton that drifted breezily to the ground. Fuck.

“Fucking hell, Ian.” Mickey grunted as he hefted the larger man over his shoulder. Ian had crashed behind some trashcans outside The Fairytale again. Wearing nothing but some sweats and a t-shirt. A puddle of frozen vomit about half a foot from his body. Mickey couldn’t figure out if it was Ian’s or someone else’s, and if it was someone else’s whether it was there before Ian had decided to pull a sleeping beauty next to the trash or if some asshole had almost vomited on his boyfriend. The image of that was nearly as infuriating as the fact that Ian’s shithead, man-whore coworkers never bothered to make sure he made it home, or at least down the block. They fucking well knew that Ian’s elevator didn’t always manage to hit the top floor. Probably made it barely past the basement when he had been drugged up with a variety of narcotics to rival an entire pharmacy by nasty-ass rich, old white dudes from the Northside who wanted to pretend they had anymore control over their lives than Southside trash like Ian and Mickey.

Mickey rubbed at Ian’s arm with one hand as he carried the boy. He was a fucking icecube.

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

And Ian was fucking frozen right now. Mickey wasn’t sure he could provide the warmth he needed. How desperately he wanted to. How many more times would Mickey have to reenact this same scene? How many other rich fucks would Mickey have to see put their hands on Ian? When Ian perked up after that first depressive episode, Mickey had been so relieved. Now he wasn’t sure if the highs or the lows were worse. The shitty part was that even during the highs Ian didn’t seem happy. Just tweaked, like his body strained to contain all of him and was barely scraping by. Mickey wondered when it would end. Fiona didn’t seem convinced that it would at all. Fuck Fiona.

Entering the Milkovich house, Mickey took Ian directly to their room, ignoring Svetlana nursing Yvegeny in the living room. Fuck her too. He shoved his way into the bedroom and unloaded Ian onto his side of the bed, tried to be gentle, but the positioning wasn’t exactly ideal and Ian kind of just flopped down. He grunted as he landed,

“Still kicking it, huh Gallagher? Fucking shame.” Mickey pulled the comforter over Ian.

“’m cold.” Was all Ian mumbled in turn.

“Yeah well, next time you feel like a little beauty rest don’t just crash next to the fucking garbage and maybe your balls won’t freeze off, shithead.” Mickey undressed and slid into bed next to the other boy. Ian rolled over and shifted to bury his face comfortably into Mickey’s neck, shoving his cold fucking feet under Mickey’s calves.

“Shit, man your feet are freezing!” Mickey jerked his legs away for a moment before Ian reached down to pull them over his feet again.

“Shuddup, princess.” Ian’s speech was slurred.

Mickey wanted to say something just to spite the asshole, but Ian had already drifted off. So instead he rolled on his side and wrapped an arm around Ian’s waist. His skin was still cold.

“Fucking hell, Ian.” Mickey breathed as he kissed the other’s forehead. So soft that he probably wouldn’t have felt it even if he were awake.

The next morning when Mickey got out of bed, Ian didn’t come with him. Recently, Ian only ever woke up hours before Mickey or not at all. However, today Ian did wander into the living room around two to find Mickey smoking on the couch, wedged between two cheetah print suitcases, cleaning an AK. Mickey looked up immediately,

“Hey champ, thought you were checked out for the day.” Ian just moved to slump against the wall, like his own weight was too heavy for him. He shook his head, imperceptibly,

“Just tired.” Mickey got up and went to Ian to clasp a hand around the back his neck.

“Alright, well, let’s at least get some food in you before you fuck off again.” He led Ian into the kitchen and the other boy didn’t resist so Mickey took that as a good sign. When he sat Ian at the table though, he crossed his arms across his chest and hunched his shoulders up to his ears, unfocused gaze trained at the grain of the wood,

“I’m… not really hungry right now, Mick.” Shit. Mickey didn’t look at him. He had already seen enough. Ian was getting too thin, what with going on eighteen mile runs or some other shit every other week, then starving himself the rest of the time. Mickey already knew that Ian looked like a ghost of a boy, a sliver of what he should be.

“Well, tough shit, I’m making lunch right now, so you at least gotta hang around and keep me company. I’m going batshit hanging around here all day.” Ian didn’t protest this even though he probably already knew Mickey was gonna try and make him choke a PB&J down.

When Mickey put the sandwich down in front of Ian, he only pushed it a few inches farther away, like even being near it would magically fucking transmit calories into his body or something. Mickey wished it would, but he didn’t say anything and ate his own food. They were silent. After a while Ian began methodically peeling the crust off his sandwich. Mickey would have been more impressed with how cleanly he was completing the task it if he knew that Ian had any remote intention to eat it after the dismemberment. It started to get on his nerves after a few minutes.

“For fuck’s sake, Gallagher, you gonna die if you inhale crust?” Ian paused in his work, didn’t look at Mickey. Mickey regretted his words. Sort of.  
  


“Sorry.” Ian nudged the plate away and tucked his hands under the table. Mickey didn’t really want to stare at him when he was clearly not doing too hot, but they were sitting directly across from each other, so he didn’t have much else to look at. Ian looked so out of it that you could probably crack him over the head with a fucking bat and he wouldn’t notice anyway. Every time the ginger blinked it was a toss as to whether his eyes would open again. Mickey was jiggling his leg furiously under the table. He lifted a hand to rub at his brow.

“Sorry.” Ian said again, he voice was too fucking thin.

“For fucking what Ian?” Mickey blew up. Ian was quiet for too long. At some point held within the silence he may have shrugged, but Mickey wasn’t looking at him anymore so he wouldn’t know.

“I dunno… just, I fucking suck…” Ian sounded frustrated, he might have been crying. Mickey wanted to be angry, most of Mickey Milkovich’s emotions were anger but right now it wouldn’t come. He wanted to be angry about the cheating, the filling the entire house with suitcases, the dancing, the falling asleep on shitty Chicago streets, the drugs. He even wanted to complain about the days spent in bed, the starvation, having to fall asleep next to a fucking onion because Ian never showered when he was down. Mickey had never minced words and he had never managed his temper. It was different with Ian. Like most things. Now he just wanted Ian to be okay again. It hurt like hell to even think it; but Mickey was starting to realize that maybe he couldn’t be the one to make it all okay. Fuck. He rubbed at his brow once more, hard this time.

“Don’t fucking say that Ian. Shit. Look at me.” Ian started to get up. Mickey reached across the table and caught his wrist,

“Ian. Please, just – look at me.” Ian looked down at him, his eyes weren’t swollen yet, but his face looked a little damp. His eyes were dull in spite of the watery sheen. The other boy sat again.

“Look.” Mickey tried to maintain eye contact and held fast Ian’s wrist, willed him to understand the sincerity of his words, “Look, man, don’t say shit like that. Cause if you fucking suck what does that mean for me? If you fucking suck then everything I’m doing here,” he motioned between them with his free hand, “- you and me - means shit all. And I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want that.”

Now Mickey was rambling, but at least Ian was still looking at him. Well, his eyes sort of wavered, but Mickey wouldn’t ask too much of him.

“And look, Ian, I’m not saying we gotta do this and I fucking hate the idea as much you do. But… I think – I think it might be good for you….” Mickey let go of Ian’s wrist to rub his face again, Ian looked like he already knew where this was going,

“Ian, I’m really trying to take care of you here. I’m really trying my best, but… but I think we need to see a doctor or some shit.” And that was it, that’s all there was. Ian jerked up out of his chair and evacuated the room so fast Mickey didn't have the chance to react. Mickey stood up belatedly and followed. He caught Ian as he was going to slam the door to their room, jamming his foot between the door and frame so Ian couldn’t get it shut on him.

“Ian. I’m just trying to fucking help you! I’m worried about you!”

Ian turned to face Mickey and pulled the door open with a vengeance. Mickey stumbled into the room,

“Fine, Mick. You wanna talk about this right now? I’m not going to a fucking shrink. That’s all there is that we gotta talk about.” then after a moment he added, “Are you ready to give up on me just like Fiona and everyone else?”

“No, fuck Ian. That’s not what I’m saying. I want you to get help! Cause I don’t think I can do it myself.” Mickey found that he was breathing a lot faster than absolutely necessary. Ian was heaving too, Mickey already felt bad. This was probably taking a lot out of Ian. Then Ian shoved him back out the door,

“Whatever, Mickey, it’s fine by me if you wanna tap out. I didn’t fucking ask you to be my babysitter.” Then Ian slammed the door in Mickey’s face. This breathed life anew into the embers of Mickey’s anger, he pounded on the door with a fist

“I’m not your fucking babysitter, Gallagher! I’m your boyfriend and I’m worried about you. I’m trying get you better because I lo - Shit!” He was so angry he almost said something awful, something awful and great and too important. He kicked the door to punctuate his statement instead. Then Mickey waited a minute. Two. Three. Four. Five minutes passed before he realized that Ian wasn’t gonna open up anytime soon. Fucking fine. See if Mickey gave a shit. So, Mickey went back to the living room and Ian probably went back to lying in bed like a fucking rock and that was that was that. Nothing ever changed with Mickey Milkovich and Ian Gallagher.

Mickey Milkovich had banged Ian Gallagher. Mickey Milkovich had banged Ian Gallagher and then Mickey fucking Milkovich kissed Ian fucking Gallagher. Then Terry fucking Milkovich tried to beat it out of them. Mickey fucking Milkovich had gotten married, but not to Ian. Then Ian fucking Gallagher went batshit. Then Mickey went to jail for Ian. Sort of. Then Mickey went to jail for Ian. For real. And now they were getting married. To each other this time.

Fucking wild.

They were walking home from the hippie bar with the weird-ass band for rich kids from the Northside like Byron and whatever the hell kind of goldfish motherfucker Ian had pulled out of the gutter. The bar where Ian had gotten on one knee over Byron’s unconscious form (fucking romantic) and proposed to Mickey. And for once they didn’t come away bloody. Well, _Ian and Mickey_ weren’t bloody anyway and that was an improvement.

Ian walked with Mickey tucked awkwardly against his side. For once it wasn’t awkward because nobody had hugged Mickey as a kid. It was awkward because Ian’s leg was fucked up and he was still trying to utilize a single crutch with his free arm. Mickey held the other crutch, which didn’t improve matters.

“Fuck.” Ian said suddenly. He was beaming. “Fuck, I missed you Mick. I love you.” He said it so freely that Mickey didn’t have time to prepare for the giddiness that bubbled up in his stomach. He was sure it would never stop thrilling him to hear those words from Ian Gallagher.

“Yeah, love you too. Calm your tits though, Romeo, you didn’t even want to marry me until an hour ago.” Ian’s arm may have tightened around him a little bit. Maybe it was just to secure his balance.

“Come on, Mickey. Don’t ruin it. If we gotta talk, let’s talk when we get home.”

Mickey just grunted. He wanted things to be good just as much as Ian did.

By the time they stumbled through the door of the Gallagher house, Mick had, had an important revelation. He really fucking wanted to marry Ian Gallagher.

This was monumental. Of course, Mickey had known this before, but he hadn’t really _known._ He thought he was just mad at Ian, finally not himself, for always fucking flaking at all the important moments. In front of the Gallagher house all those years ago, at the border, and most recently the courthouse. Mickey had done a whole lot of ridiculous shit for Ian Gallagher and would certainly do it again.

He’d learned that from Ian in the first place. He’d learned to make his own decisions. And because he knew that, he knew he wanted Ian all in. He thought it was obvious that he would want Ian all in. It was more than that. Mickey was tired of taking detours and the scenic route to what he wanted. He wanted Ian and he finally wanted fucking all of him. Mickey really wanted to marry Ian.

They finally separated as they made it to their room, both dropping to the bed. It was less than a moment before they came together again. He hadn’t been gone long, but hell if Mickey hadn’t missed Ian’s hands. He’d only touched Byron’s hands once, they were fucking freezing and the bitch probably got them manicured once a week. And hell if Mickey hadn’t missed lying next to Ian in their bed, that smelled like both of them, in their room, in their house. It was like there wasn’t anywhere else in the entire fucking world Mickey could breathe easy like he could here.

“I don’t think you wanna hear any explanations I have for you.” Ian said suddenly, softly like he always did when he said something he wasn’t sure Mickey would like.

“What?”

“About why I kind of… ran out on you.”

“Oh you mean, how you left me at the fucking altar… or desk… or whatever.”

Ian cringed “Yeah. But Mickey, listen to me, I meant what I said at the bar. I love you more than anything.”

Mickey was quiet for a moment, which didn’t happen often, “Yeah, I know. I love you too, I just wanted to do it right. This time.”

They were both silent now,

“Is that what this was all about Mick? You getting married to Svet back then? Shit.”

“No, that’s not what it’s about. Or not all of it. It’s about you and me, both of us, deciding to finally fucking put all of that shit behind us and do something the right way for once. No more running away bullshit. For either of us.”

Ian nodded and then curled his arms in a tighter circle around Mickey, “I want you to know Mick. I have never thought that you failed me.” Mickey relaxed into Ian.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Shit. I know. I know, but I just - You’re really something fucking special Mick. I hope you know that.” There it was. The reason Mickey loved Ian Gallagher, through all the family problems and the manic episodes and the prison sentences and all of the bullshit. Ian was such a indomitable fucking optimist and that even extended to Mickey.

“Sure. You’re special too Ian. A special fucking pain in the ass.” At that Ian laughed, loud and uninhibited.

Once Mickey had thought kissing Ian Gallagher was the best feeling in the entire fucking world. He was wrong. Seeing Ian like this, at his rawest and most unfiltered, was. The powerful feeling of knowing someone really and truly, before anyone else.

Kissing was still a tight second, or third, next to fucking now that they did both at the same time. They were such dumbasses when they were younger. Probably still were. Ian jabbed Mickey in the side. Mickey shoved at his shoulder in retaliation. They devolved into wrestling. Then Mickey had Ian pinned to the bed. And for a while Mickey just looked at Ian.

He looked too inviting in the shitty lighting of their bedroom, making his eyelashes darker, his skin warmer, and his eyes softer. Mickey looked at him and Ian looked back,

“Fucking love you, Gallagher.” Mickey said and felt Ian’s smile when they kissed.

Mickey was alone in the kitchen, for once. It was nine o’clock in the morning and it was glorious. It was either a fucking miracle or a sure sign of the end of the world, probably written somewhere in the Bible. The quiet was nice though, with Ian and Debbie at work already, any spare Gallagher children at school like the upstanding citizens they were, Frank hadn’t crawled in from the streets in a week and a half, and Carl doing whatever the hell Carl did.

Mickey didn’t think he’d heard a quiet like this since he got out of the can five months ago. It was nice. Mickey had adjusted to the Gallagher’s now and even been accepted by them already, a feat of monumental proportions, but he was still Mickey. Sometimes the noise was too much. Here he was though, drinking his shitty tar coffee in his boxers in a quiet kitchen with the morning light fucking streaming in through the windows that nobody had cleaned, ever, like he was a Disney princess or some shit.

The only Disney movie Mickey had ever watched was that depressing one about a deformed dude in a bell tower and there were no princesses, but he figured that was probably an outlier and most of them were about people shitting butterflies and rainbows. He didn’t have much time to ponder further on this topic because Lip came through the back door, Fred strapped to his chest in a baby-carrier. Tami probably had him on some shit about how keeping the kid close to your heart made them into baby Einstein.

“Hey, Mickey.” Mickey thought that he would never have kids, no matter what Ian said, if he had to wear shit like that. “You mind watching Fred for a bit while I run to the store?”

Mickey shrugged like he didn’t care, but he was already getting up to take the child as Lip struggled with the buckles on the carrier. Once Mickey had Fred, it struck him: things had changed between him and Lip. From beating Lip up in front of his girlfriend on the streets to watching his son, who was Mickey’s nephew. What a fucking whacked out life Mickey had made for himself. He was terribly proud of it.

“You want coffee before you go?” Mickey offered. He had manners. Now Lip shrugged and went to get a mug. Mickey sat down and let Fred gnaw on his finger, even though it hurt like a bitch. Neither of the men spoke for a moment. Of course, Lip had to say something eventually though, he was a Gallagher.

“How’s marital bliss, Mr. Gallagher?” He prodded, jokingly.

“It's Milkovich-Gallagher. Fucking fantastic.” Then, “Why, you and white trash Barbie getting hitched soon?”

Lip snorted, choking on his coffee in the process. “Hell no,” he managed between coughs. He cleared his throat, “Hell no, she’d be threatening divorce every other fucking day.”

“Yeah well, good thing about being so fucking poor is that if you get divorced, half of nothing is still nothing. You got nothing to lose Gallagher.”

“Thanks for the encouragement, Mickey. There’s something I’m more worried about than money though.” Lip looked pointedly at Fred. Mickey nodded.

“These little shits. On second thought, you better not marry Tami. Ever since we made it official, all Ian talks about is having five-fucking-hundred babies to traumatize like our parents did with us.” Lip hummed like he could see straight through Mickey,

“You gonna give him five-hundred kids to screw up though?”

“Dunno, I hope he knows that neither of us are gonna get knocked up. You or Fiona ever give him the talk?” Lip gave him a shit-eating grin,

“He’s a Milkovich now. So that sounds like your problem, Mr. Milkovich.”

“Fuck off, AA.” He would’ve flipped Lip off too, but one hand was holding up Fred and the other was being used as a teether.

They fell into silence again. Now more comfortable than before. Mickey was able to finish his own room temperature coffee before Lip pressed,

“I always wondered. Why Ian?”

“Geez, don’t compliment him too much, he’s only your fucking brother.”

“That’s not what I meant. I love Ian, but you two together? Gotta admit, didn’t see that one coming.”

“Weren’t you the asshole who knew we were fucking from the beginning?”

Lip shrugged, “took a lot of adjusting.”

“I guess…” Mickey started, tried to think about what to say for a bit, because he was doing that these days, “Ian just always thought I’d make it. Nobody before him, not even Mandy, really thought I was worth shit. Ian, though, he always acted like I was Gandhi reincarnated.”

Lip thought, then said, “That's thing with Ian, isn't it? What about when he started getting episodes? Or he broke it off with you? Why stick around then? You had no obligation to.”

“I didn’t… really. I thought I could fucking fix him or something before he was on his meds. I was wrong, obviously. And I got thrown in the joint right after he dumped me. But it wasn’t all bad. All that shit, even if it’s shit, it happened and we’re still here. So I don’t mind it.”

Lip nodded slowly like he didn’t understand quite yet, but he was trying. That, Mickey had realized, was the most important thing. That was something Terry Milkovich had never done in his entire fucking life. And that was why Micky was not his father. So, he looked down at Fred, who had slumped into the curve of his arm, nearly asleep and said,

“I might not mind a few kids of my own.”

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

At one point Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich had been freezing all their lives. Right now, Mickey was burning up, sweating balls. He nudged Ian with his foot none too gently,

“Wake the fuck up, firecrotch.” Ian didn’t budge. He may be getting too used to Mickey. Mickey shoved a hand blindly towards Ian’s chest and then pinched one of his nipples hard. And not in a sexy way.

“What the fuck Mick?” Ian still sounded eighty percent asleep in spite of the rude awakening.

“You gotta get off me, I’m sweating my dick off here.” It was fucking August. The A/C in the Gallagher house was broken, again. They wouldn’t have enough money to get it fixed till the end of the week. And yet Ian Milkovich-Gallagher still wanted to sleep cuddled up like it was the middle of December and all they had for warmth was each other. They also had a blanket over them.

Mickey shoved Ian’s arm off his stomach and threw the blanket off both of them. Then he got up to soak every part of his body possible with cold water from the bathroom sink. After a minute, Ian followed. He watched Mickey splash his face for about half a millisecond before he butt in,

“Hey asshole, let’s go back to bed.”

Mickey paused specifically to nail Ian with a look that said, ‘you’re batshit crazy’ and then actually said,

“You gotta at least change that sweaty fucking shirt if you want me to go anywhere near you until the A/C is running again.” Ian folded his arms over his chest defensively and went to change his clothes, or rather discard them because when he returned, he was only wearing boxers. He said.

“You know what’s kind of weird? I just thought of this line from a book I read in high school.”

“Yeah?” Mickey squeezed past Ian in the doorway of the bathroom and began stripping down himself upon reentering their room.

“Yeah, Moby Dick. It was, um, something like ‘to enjoy warmth, you have to be cold’?”

Mickey stood up to give Ian an odd look. What the fuck?

“You mean ‘to enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold’?” Ian looked at him incredulously for a moment,

“Yeah, that’s the one. How’d you know?”

“Shut up. Contrary to popular belief, I know how to read.”

“It not that. You didn’t ever read Moby Dick, did you?” Moby Dick, must’ve been been Moldy Dick’s real name. Good. The author wasn’t totally crazy.

“Nah. Mandy did though, probably the same time you did. I looked at it once.”

“You looked at it _once_ and you remember that? Fuck, Mick you’re a genius. We’re gonna be loaded when you get your GED.” Mickey squinted at Ian to see if he was joking. He wasn't.

Mickey, shrugged. He was embarrassed now. Ian got back in bed and beckoned Mickey to join him. Mickey had hardly ever been able to say no to Ian when it mattered. He laid down next to his husband, draping one arm over Ian’s waist and letting Ian hold the left, fiddling with the ring on Mickey’s finger that he even wore to sleep.

“That’s fucking wild though.” Ian picked it up again.

“What?”

“That we both remembered that line.”

“Yeah, from the book with dick in the title? Big surprise there.” They both laughed. Ian loud and Mickey nearly silent. Ian pressed a kiss to his forehead and stayed there.

_To enjoy bodily warmth, some part of you must be cold._

In the first seventeen years of his life Mickey Milkovich-Gallagher had frozen enough to forget what warmth felt like at all. He would spend the rest of his life thawing out against the burning heat of Ian Milkovich-Gallagher.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, thank you so much for reading this little ramble of mine. I hope it was at least easy to read, if not enjoyable. I'm just so charmed and intrigued by Mickey Milkovich.  
> I also relate a lot to Ian as I have bipolar disorder myself. People with bipolar disorder who aren't completely unlikeable are sorely underrepresented in popular media. so when people do Ian wrong I probably get a little too defensive. 
> 
> My goal with this work was to explore why exactly Mickey stuck with Ian through it all, even as someone who sees themself in Ian, I know it's a lot. Then I realized, Ian was the first person to see Mickey's potential to be good. He never treated him like the thug Mickey presented himself as and believed so wholeheartedly in Mickey. Maybe even to a fault. I think Mickey's crazy character growth was really facilitated by Ian's expectations and hopes for him. Either way, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. I love this couple.
> 
> Also sorry Byron, for calling you a bitch. You didn't deserve it.


End file.
